Thomas Browne

I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgement for not agreeing with me in that, from which perhaps within a few days I should dissent myself.

I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgement for not agreeing with me in that, from which perhaps within a few days I should dissent myself.

Section 6.

Many from the ignorance of these Maxims, and an inconsiderate zeal unto Truth, have too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as Trophies unto the enemies of Truth: A man may be in as just possession of Truth as of a City, and yet be forced to surrender.

The severe Schools shall never laugh me out of the Philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible.

Section 12.

We carry with us the wonders, we seek without us: There is all Africa, and her prodigies in us; we are that bold and adventurous piece of nature, which he that studies, wisely learns in a compendium, what others labour at in a divided piece and endless volume.

I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof; 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, Wife, and Children stand afraid and start at us.

Section 40.

The thousand doors that lead to death.

Section 44.

Whosoever enjoys not this life, I count him but an apparition, though he wear about him the sensible affections of flesh. In these moral acceptions, the way to be immortal is to die daily.

Section 45.

I believe the world grows near its end, yet is neither old nor decayed, nor will ever perish upon the ruins of its own principles.

Section 45.

How shall the dead arise, is no question of my faith; to believe only possibilities, is not faith, but mere philosophy.

It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million of faces there should be none alike.

Section 2.

There is surely a Physiognomy, which those experienced and Master Mendicants observe… For there are mystically in our faces certain Characters that carry in them the motto of our Souls, wherein he that cannot read A.B.C. may read our natures.

Section 2.

I intend no Monopoly, but a Community in Learning; I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves.

Section 3.

They that endeavour to abolish vice destroy also virtue, for contraries, though they destroy one another, are yet the life of one another.

Section 4.

No man can justly censure or condemn another, because indeed no man truly knows another.

Section 4.

But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world, yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were, his own executioner.

Section 4.

I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar act of coition; It is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life, nor is there anything that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed.

Section 9.

I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of a horse. It is my temper, & I like it the better, to affect all harmony, and sure there is music even in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. For there is a music wherever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres.

Section 9.

I can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others.

Section 9.

We all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.

Section 9.

There is no man alone, because every man is a Microcosm, and carries the whole world about him.

Section 10.

For the world, I count it not an Inn, but a Hospital, and a place, not to live, but to die in.

Section 11.

Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition, and fortunes, do err in my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders.

Section 11.

There is surely a piece of Divinity within us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun.

Section 11.

I am in no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company, yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof.

Section 11.

The world that I regard is my selfe, it is the Microcosme of mine owne frame, that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my Globe, and turne it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing onely my condition, and fortunes, do erre in my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders.

Section 12.

We term sleep a death, and yet it is waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life.

Section 12.

and surely it is not a melancholy conceite to thinke we are all asleepe in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as meare dreames to those of the next, as the Phantasmes of the night, to the conceit of the day.

Section 12

Sleep is a death; oh, make me try
By sleeping what it is to die,
And as gently lay my head
On my grave as now my bed.

Section 12.

Aristotle whilst he labours to refute the Ideas of Plato, falls upon one himself: for his summum bonum, is a Chimera, and there is no such thing as his Felicity.

Times before you, when even the living men were Antiquities; when the living might exceed the dead, and to depart this world, could not be properly said, to go unto the greater number.

Dedication.

I look upon you as a gem of the old rock.

Dedication.

In the deep discovery of the Subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfy some enquirers.

Chapter I.

A Dialogue between two Infants in the womb concerning the state of this world, might handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in Plato's Den, and are but Embryon Philosophers.

Chapter IV.

Were the happiness of the next world as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to live.

Chapter IV.

Time which antiquates Antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things.

Chapter V.

The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.

Chapter V.

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.

But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the Pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the Temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it.

Chapter V.

Who knows whether the best of men be known? or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? without the favour of the everlasting Register the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methusaleh's long life had been his only Chronicle.

Chapter V.

Oblivion is not to be hired: The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the Register of God, not in the record of man.

Chapter V.

The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the Æquinox?

Chapter V.

Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory, a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables.

Chapter V.

But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of Bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.

That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana the fourth day after their Nativities, according to Gentile Theology, may pass for no blind apprehension of the Creation of the Sun and Moon, in the work of the fourth day.

Opening lines of Ch. 1

Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living: All things fall under this name. The Sun itself is but the dark simulacrum, and the light but the shadow of God.

Ch. 4.

But the Quincunx of Heaven runs low, and 'tis time to close the five ports of knowledge.

Ch. 5.

To keep our eyes open longer were but to set our Antipodes. The Huntsmen are up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia. But who can be drowsy at that hour which freed us from everlasting sleep? or have slumbering thoughts at that time, when sleep itself must end, and as some conjecture all shall awake again?

To make an end of all things on Earth, and our Planetical System of the World, he (God) need but put out the Sun.

Not to be content with Life is the unsatisfactory state of those which destroy themselves; who being afraid to live, run blindly upon their own Death, which no Man fears by Experience.

And surely, he that hath taken the true Altitude of Things, and rightly calculated the degenerate state of this Age, is not like to envy those that shall live in the next, much less three or four hundred Years hence, when no Man can comfortably imagine what Face this World will carry.

Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others.

Part I, Section XIX

The noblest Digladiation is in the Theatre of ourselves.

Part I, Section XXIV

He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth himself.

Part I, Section XXXIV

Burden not the back of Aries,Leo, or Taurus, with thy faults, nor make Saturn,Mars, or Venus, guilty of thy Follies.

Part III, Section VII

To ruminate upon evils, to make critical notes upon injuries, and be too acute in their apprehensions, is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the arrows of our enemies, to lash ourselves with the scorpions of our foes, and to resolve to sleep no more.